We bring you the next edition of the movers and shakers of the week.

This week, Soaib Grewal, venture partner, Times Internet announced his departure from the company. After his three year stint at Times Internet, Grewal said that he had been obsessed with a problem statement made explicit by Covid-19. “It’s come to a point where this deserves my full attention,” he added. Grewal will continue supporting the portfolio companies in a personal capacity.

While in the startups, the hiring has started to scale. Enterprise contract management provider Icertis said it has seen strong growth in hiring in the first half of 2020 as the company added over 300 employees globally. 

To meet the increased demand, Icertis hired a total of 319 employees in the past six months including more than 50 recent graduates from the class of 2020. With this, the company has also added a senior leadership team who will drive additional growth including Betsy Atkins to Board of Advisors, Pranali Save as CHRO, and Ajay Bhandari as EVP, Professional Services. 

Similarly, deeptech startup Avataar.me announced the doubling of its workforce amid increased demand for AR applications in retail and ecommerce. It said it now employs more than 50 people, across its development centre in Bengaluru and sales offices in San Francisco and Gurugram.

The company hired mid-level to senior roles in R&D (AI/ML and Data Science), Engineering, Customer Development and Delivery, 3D and Visual Innovation. The company plans to expand its sales presence to the UK, North Asia and SE Asia in the coming few months.

Further, MagicLab, the parent company behind dating and networking apps Bumble and Badoo, has been renamed to Bumble. Bumble will continue to be led by its CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd who will operate and continue to scale the apps. Further, it has also made key leadership appointments including Tariq Shaukat as President, Ronen Benchetrit as the parent company’s Chief Technology Officer, and Tran Taylor, Chief People Officer. 

On the Board level, Ann Mather has been appointed as non-executive Board Chair and Matthew Bromberg, Pamela Thomas-Graham and Elisa Steele as Board Members. 

Here are the other movers and shakers of the week:

upGrad Strengthens Leadership Team

Bengaluru-based edtech startup upGrad has announced the appointment of key senior leaders. It has appointed Rohit Dhar as the new President – Products.

Dhar, who had cofounded Brainybatch Internet, has over 13 years of experience in managing products for leading companies like OLX, Flipkart, eBay, PayPal, and StubHub. He will be leading the entire Product, Data Science, Analytics, and Design teams at upGrad.

Further, the company hired Puneet Tanwar as President – Technology who will be leading the Technology vertical at upGrad. Tanwar has over 20 years of experience in software development and joined upGrad from 1E, a UK-based software product company where he was Head of Engineering, India. Prior to this, he has held leadership positions in Engineering in firms such as Diebold Nixdorf, Microsoft and Electronic Arts.

Prior to this, the company appointed Deepak H. Singhka as the Vice President – Business. He will help steer the entire business towards growth and manage as well as improve upon the success rate for working professionals, the college, and the academy business. He started his career at Mahindra & Mahindra and went on to work at BYJU’S. There, he was responsible for initiating the ‘Field Sales’ across multiple cities in India, along with ‘Inside Sales’ in the Bengaluru office.

The company is geared towards doubling up its workforce to 2000 by the end of this fiscal. Founded in early 2015, upGrad has onboarded over 30K paid learners and impacted more than half a million individuals globally, within a short span of 5 years.

Zee5 India Appoints Manish Kalra

Indian entertainment company Zee5 India has hired Manish Kalra to lead their AVOD service as Senior Vice President and Business Head. In his new role, he will be responsible for overall AVOD business, developing the platform and content marketing strategy including, strategy for user acquisition and retention campaigns, partnerships and alliances for distribution and consumption of the AVOD content on the platform and driving overall growth.

With over 19 years of experience, Kalra has experience in the online business and marketing space. Prior to this, over the last 10 years, he has taken up various leadership roles like CMO, CBO and CEO in various online organizations like Amazon, MakeMyTrip.com, Craftsvilla.com and Homeshop18.

He holds a Master’s in Business Administration from XLRI, Jamshedpur and a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh.

With content across 12 languages like English, Hindi, Bengali, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Oriya, Bhojpuri, Gujarati & Punjabi, ZEE5 is home to 1.25 lakh hours of On Demand Content and 100+ live TV channels. 

Ken42 Appoints Sasi Kumar Sundarajan As Advisor

Mumbai-based edtech superapp platform Ken42 announced the appointment of Sasi Kumar Sundararajan as their Advisor. He will be based out of Ken42’s Bengaluru office.  

With over 23 years of experience in the industry, he has worked with PwC, Deloitte and EY as Practice Leader cover Public, Govt. and Private sector consulting in Growth, Restructuring, Investments, Technology and Capacity Building across several sectors in India, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Middle-East and GCC. 

He has also been a guide, mentor and advisor to Startups, Incubators, Accelerators, PE Funds and Universities in the areas like Future of Work, Industry 4.0, Big Data, Digital, Disruption, Startups, Mid-markets, Growth, Sharing Economy and Circular Economy. 

Ken 42 is designed to support students at every stage of their crucial learning years, from Class 6 through 12 in its offering for schools, and from standard 12 through higher education and placements, Ken 42 is strongly differentiated from other learning management platforms.

Trimble Elevates Jayant Keswani As Marketing Director 

Trimble Inc has announced the appointment of Jayant Keswani as Marketing Director at Trimble Buildings, India & Middle East. In this role, Keswani will be responsible for developing and executing Trimble Buildings’ marketing and communications strategies in alignment with Trimble’s overall business strategy as well as identifying new market opportunities across India and the Middle East. 

He has been with Trimble for more than five years, most recently serving as Director of Marketing for Trimble Buildings in the India region. He has more than 30 years of industry experience, having held various marketing and leadership positions at the leading consumer and technology companies, including Airtel, LG, Panasonic and Autodesk. 

Trimble’s hardware and software products and solutions are used in construction, agriculture, transportation, utilities and geo-spatial industries globally. It is focused on solutions that optimize the complete Design-Build-Operate (DBO) lifecycle of buildings. 

Airtel Appoints Ganesh Lakshminarayanan

Bharti Airtel announced the appointment of Ganesh Lakshminarayanan as CEO-Enterprise Business. 

In his new role, Lakshminarayanan will be responsible for further strengthening Airtel’s market leadership in the B2B segment and accelerate growth as enterprises undergo digital transformation to become future ready. He will report to Ajay Chitkara, Director – Airtel Business.

 He brings rich experience in the IT and technology sector. Prior to joining Airtel, he was COO for Capillary Technologies. Over the years, Lakshminarayanan led various functions at Dell – Global Consumer and SME Services, Ecommerce business for Americas and Sales Ops for APAC. 

Lakshminarayanan takes over from Ashish Arora who has been elevated as CEO – Global Business and looks at expanding Airtel’s global networks, including submarine cable systems, to serve international and domestic customers. 

 Airtel serves over 2500 large and one million plus SMEs and startups with its integrated product portfolio that includes data centres, cloud, security and collaboration. 

Amit Tyagi Appointed As CEO Of ApnaComplex

Bengaluru-based Apartment Management and Security Solutions company ApnaComplex has announced the appointment of Amit Kumar Tyagi as the new Chief Executive Officer. Raja Sekhar Kommu (Rajs), the current CEO of the company will now be the Chairman of the Board of Directors.

Tyagi joined ApnaComplex as the Chief Business Officer in July 2018. With more than 13 years of experience, he has been driving revenue growth of leading global go-to-market teams across multiple industries. In addition to ApnaComplex, he has been very active in IIMB Alumni activities and currently serves as Dy. Director in IIMB Alumni Association. He has an MBA from IIM Bangalore and B.Tech from IIT (ISM), Dhanbad. 

He will look after the management of the day-to-day business of the company and contribute in leading and developing ApnaComplex’s future growth. ApnaComplex has 20,000 Apartment Societies in over 80 cities that use their solution to manage all aspects of their society. 

Bada Business Appoints Sunil Chopra As COO

Edtech startup Bada Business has appointed Sunil Chopra as its Chief Operating Officer. The new COO will bolster the organizational leadership as it undertakes a major countrywide expansion over the next few years. In his new role, Chopra will be responsible for spearheading and overseeing operations as the organization enters its next phase of growth.

With almost three decades of experience, he has worked across different sectors ranging from IT, Technology, Electronics to Telecom. He has also held multiple positions and performed a variety of roles ranging from sales, management, business development to people strategy. 

He has been the Group Executive Director of Manufacturers for Gionee and Karbonn Mobiles (Jaina Mobiles) as well as the first country head of Sapient, India during the course of his career. His last stint was as Global President with HealthCubed Inc, Alkemi & Acumen Funded.

An alumnus of IIM, Lucknow, he has undertaken successful leadership roles with top MNCs including GE, Nokia, Sapient, Xerox, among others.

Aquapay Appoints New CEO Nitin Chavan

Enterprise Payments Major and Platform as a service (PaaS) specialist, Aquapay Payments Technologies announced that Nitin Chavan has been appointed as Chief Executive Officer.

Chavan joins the Aquapay team with two decades of experience spanning across Logistics, Aviation, Insurance and Banking majors. He has about 15 years of enterprise payments experience and a strong track record of growth acceleration and business transformation.

He was most recently served as Vice President & Business Head – Commercial Cards, India at Axis Bank Limited with knowledge and understanding about Commercial Cards, Enterprise Payment Ecosystems, Process Innovations and Technology platforms.

Prior to Axis Bank, Chavan held strategic positions at American Express & ICICI Bank. He is a Bachelor of Technology Graduate from the Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT) and MBA in Marketing from Mumbai University.

Aquapay’s existing enterprise product suite in the area of Supplier Payments, Utility Bill Payments, GST Payments, Direct Tax Payments, Virtual Cards etc. help companies to improve their process efficiency, drive savings and attain technological edge with enhanced controls and user experience.

Fruzzanté Appoints Deepak Bhatnagar As Director

Mumbai-based Fruzzanté has appointed Deepak Bhatnagar, as one of the Directors of the company. With more than 30 years of experience, Bhatnagar recently retired as the Director – Sales & Marketing at Sula Vineyards Pvt. Ltd. While he still continues his contribution at Sula as an Advisor, he has joined hands with his long-time family friend Shrikant Save at Hill Zill Wines. At Fruzzanté, he will focus on product visibility and brand awareness. 

He is a Senior Sales and Marketing Management executive in the industry for delivering revenue and profits within highly competitive markets. In his career span, Bhatnagar has worked with brands including Lowenbrau Buttenheim Pvt Ltd, Som Distilleries, Forbes and Cambell, etc. 

Founded In 2016, Fruzzanté began its journey as a full-fledged winery, which also produces alcoholic beverages from Sapota  Chikoo commercially. The brand has plans to enter Goa, Telangana and other states after this is set properly. 

Dr Srinivas Chunduru Joins Snack Amor As Strategic Advisor

Snack Amor has appointed Dr Srinivas Chunduru as a strategic advisor. He has also invested an undisclosed amount in the company through his family office VANS Investments. 

With more than 20 years’ experience at Piramal Housing Finance as Business Head and Executive Director, Chunduru has expertise across diverse functions such as P&L Management, Business Development, Corporate Strategy, M&A, Investor Relations and Strategic HR. He brings in extensive experience in managing large teams, working closely with foundations and initiatives as an advisor and/or as a board member, and partnering closely with founders/ promoters/family managed businesses for strategic business growth.

He has also been a key advisor for Ola as its Interim CHRO and CEO (OSPL) and continues to be on the board of Ola group companies (OSPL).

Dr. Chunduru has earlier worked with initiatives in the space of Food, Livelihood, Skill Development and Education. He is the Founder and Member of Board of Vans Group (Vans Investments, Vans Skilling and Advisory) which has interests in varied areas like Edutech, Fintech, Skilling & advisory and HR analytics. Snack Amor is a health food and snacking startup based in Mumbai.

Stay tuned for the next edition of the movers and shakers of the week!

The post Movers And Shakers Of The Week [July 20-25] appeared first on Inc42 Media.

We bring you the latest edition of the news roundup: Indian startup news stories of the week!

This week, major announcements for India’s digital economy were made at the Global Fintech Festival 2020 (GFF) a virtual fintech event organised by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and the Payments Council of India (PCI). NPCI launched UPI AutoPay, a feature through which customers will be able to set an e-mandate for recurring payments on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI). UPI AutoPay will allow customers to set an e-mandate for recurring payments of up to INR 2,000. For payments worth more than INR 2,000, the customers would have to enter their UPI Pin for each recurring payment. 

On the day of the launch of the product, Nandan Nilekani, chairman of UIDAI which leads the Aadhaar project, said that the new UPI feature will allow the NPCI to reach its goal of $1 Bn transactions a day. The facility for e-mandate helps customers in making payments for insurance premiums, SIPs and subscription fees, among others. 

On the second day of GFF, NPCI again made news. This time, for launching a business credit card for small and medium businesses and startups, the RuPay business credit card, in collaboration with SBM Bank India and fintech startup EnKash. The SBM EnKash RuPay Business Card is expected to streamline business operations with a 30-day credit period on business purchases, bill payments, travel expenses, automated GST, rental payments, payments to suppliers and online purchase of software, among others. 

Democratising access to credit has been a major focus of digital technologies in India. The GFF certainly demonstrated that. At the same event, Nilekani also launched a new credit protocol infrastructure, the ‘Open Credit Enablement Network’ (OCEN) to connect lenders and marketplaces, saying it will democratise credit in India and help small businesses and entrepreneurs get loans. While the OCEN protocol, developed by the Indian Software Product Industry Round Table (iSPIRT) over the past few months, is currently under discussion, Nilekani claimed that its implementation could democratise lending to micro-enterprises and street vendors in a big way. Both the RuPay business credit card and the proposed implementation of the OCEN are aimed at addressing the financial needs of India’s small businesses, who’ve had it tough in the past few months because of the Covid-19 pandemic and the ensuing financial disruption.

Unicorn 

OYO Considers Giving Up Head Office

Hospitality unicorn OYO is planning to experiment with a ‘hybrid workplace model’, whereby, the company’s employees have been divided into three categories — corporate employees, capability functions and field staff. While the nature of their duties have meant that the field staff have begun stepping out, employees in the other two categories have the option to either ‘work from home’ or out of corporate co-working centres, offered by OYO Workspaces, which is OYO’s coworking space arm. 

Facing a severe revenue crunch due to the financial disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, OYO has also given up leases of two of its flagship corporate offices in Gurugram invoking the ‘force majeure’ clause which provides a temporary reprieve to a party from performing its obligations under a contract due to natural calamities. The company is also negotiating to terminate the lease for a third property in Gurugram. 

PolicyBazaar To Make Stock Market Debut 

Online insurance aggregator PolicyBazaar is planning to raise $250 Mn in a round of financing at a valuation of $2 Bn, before issuing its initial public offering (IPO) in September 2021. The company is planning to go public this year, by the time it expects to turn profitable, after incurring a loss-making FY 2019. 

PolicyBazaar plans to list in Mumbai, but the company’s co-founder Yashish Dahiya is open to a dual listing if the rules change. India is reportedly planning to tweak regulations to permit overseas listing. Many startups have incorporated in the US and Singapore, where public listing rules and other considerations are friendlier but India currently prohibits that for sensitive sectors like financial services. 

Paytm Registers 3.5x Growth In Transactions During Lockdown

The GFF also saw Indian startups talk about the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on business and ways in which they tried to tide over the crises. Bucking the trend for the overall fall in digital payments due to the financial disruption during the pandemic, digital payments giant Paytm has registered 3.5x growth in transactions during the Covid-19 lockdown and is now planning to venture into stockbroking, it announced during the festival. Further, the company’s founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma claimed that Paytm had taken the second spot in terms of ticketing and events business, and was a distant third in ecommerce. 

Fintech 

Cars24 Forays Into Loan-Against-Car Segment 

While customers could traditionally avail a loan when they were buying a new or pre-owned car, Indian auto-tech company Cars24 has introduced a new offering where customers can avail loan against their existing car. The launch of the new service comes after a Cars24 survey revealed that the number of customers who sold their cars due to a liquidity crunch during the pandemic has doubled, compared to pre-corona times. 

Customers, applying for a loan against their cars, will get benefits such as same-day loan approval and disbursement, up to 100% funding against the car’s latest value (for vehicles up to 12 years old), loan initiation with minimal documentation (PAN, Address Proof and Bank Statement) and additional benefits like the installation of an anti-theft device and easy foreclosure options. 

Reliance Plows 35K Cr In Debt Mutual Funds 

Even a week after its 43rd Annual General Meeting (AGM), Reliance continues to make news for the massive inflow of capital it has got — with a strategic stakes sale in its digital subsidiary Jio Platforms, fetching INR 1.5 Lakh Cr in investments — and the slew of announcements made at the AGM. This week, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) deposited INR 35,000 Cr into ultra-short and ultra-money market funds, and in other funds focused on debt with three-to-five-year maturities. With the deluge of Reliance-related money pouring into the country, the Indian rupee also witnessed a good last month, where it rose 1% against the US dollar and is now the best performing Asian currency. 

Ecommerce 

Morgan Stanley Expects Ecommerce To Boost Sales For Reliance Retail

US Investment Bank Morgan Stanley expects ecommerce to account for almost 15% of Reliance Retail’s total sales by 2023, estimated to be worth $19 Bn. The retail sales estimates exclude connecting revenues, such as mobile recharges, and petro-retail, where it has sold a stake to British Petroleum. Based on the retail sales estimates, the net asset value of Reliance Retail was pegged at $29 Bn. Reliance’s plans for ecommerce are certainly taking note of the sector’s potential. During the company’s 43rd AGM last week, Reliance chairman Mukesh Ambani announced that its online grocery store JioMart would soon evolve into a full-fledged ecommerce store, selling electronics, fashion, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, among other products. On July 19, JioMart launched its mobile application on the Play Store and App Store. Within a week of its launch, the app has crossed 10 lakh downloads on the Play Store alone. 

Flipkart Acquires Walmart’s Loss-Making B2B Wholesale Store

In a perplexing development, Flipkart, which was acquired by US retail giant Walmart in 2018, has now bought its parent company’s loss-making B2B wholesale store in India, Best Price Modern Wholesale, to launch its own service ‘Flipkart Wholesale’ in a bid to expand its presence in the food and retail segment. The deal, a reverse acquisition in business parlance, will help Flipkart Wholesale strengthen its capabilities and B2B service offering. Walmart India employees will join Flipkart Group and the home office team will integrate over the next year. The company has assured that the Best Price brand will continue to serve its 1.5 Mn customers through its omnichannel network of 28 stores and ecommerce ventures.

Ecommerce Key Focus Of Revamped Consumer Protection Law

The Consumer Protection Act (CPA), which came into effect this week, brought ecommerce within its ambit and as such, broadened the definition of a consumer. The CPA, which replaces the earlier Act from 1986, has brought some salient features for consumer redressal, namely the setting up of a three-tier consumer redressal mechanism, with nodal authorities at the central, state and district levels to deal with consumers’ complaints. 

The Act also mandates the setting up of a Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) for protecting the rights of consumers. While the Act has been largely praised by experts for addressing the needs of dramatically changing marketplaces and empowering consumers, some domain experts have expressed concerns regarding a few provisions in the Act. At least one such expert who Inc42 spoke to, pointed out the need for segregation and clarity to remove overlapping compliances. Rameesh Kailasam of IndiaTech.org said that where there’s should be a carve-out provision which should specify that where there is an existing regulation or an Act that binds a business for consumer protection, such businesses would not be bound by certain provisions of the CPA.

International 

Facebook Combines Video Conferencing Messenger Room And Live Feature

Social media giant Facebook has combined its video conferencing product Messenger Rooms with its Facebook Live feature to enable the live stream of video calls with up to 50 participants. The latest offering will make it possible for large audiences to tune in and watch group video calls in real-time. This could include events like speaker panels and networking events as well. The Mark Zuckerberg-led company introduced Messenger Rooms in April 2020 for Facebook and messaging platform Messenger to participate directly in the booming video conferencing segment.

Amazon To Buy Stake In Reliance Retail? 

Ecommerce giant Amazon may figure in Mukesh Ambani’s ambitious plans for the expansion of Reliance Retail. Reportedly, Amazon is considering buying a 9.9% stake in Reliance Retail. However, the value of this supposed deal remains unknown. It is worth noting that in April, another US tech giant Facebook picked up a 9.9% stake in Reliance’s subsidiary Jio. Is Reliance Retail, the next Jio? The news comes in the same week when US Investment Bank Morgan Stanley’s estimates pegged Reliance’s core retail sales by 2023 at $19 Bn, of which, 15% are expected to come from ecommerce. 

As for Amazon, the ecommerce giant also made the news for trying to recover its lost business in India by making its Prime Day sales even bigger, with better offers, technology intervention and more. The two-day sale will begin on August 6 and will provide 48-hour delivery, exclusive discounts, early deals, streaming music, video, and other benefits to Prime customers. Meanwhile, Amazon’s digital payments venture Amazon Pay has entered the insurance distribution business by partnering with Mumbai-based motor insurance provider Acko General Insurance. The development is in alignment with Amazon Pay’s plans to become a full-fledged financial services platform.

India’s Infamous Angel Investor Mukund Mohan Arrested In The US 

Former Amazon and Microsoft executive Mukund Mohan has been arrested in the US for forging documents to acquire more than $5.5 Mn from the coronavirus relief funds meant for startups to retain workers. Previously, Mohan was the subject of an Inc42 investigative report, Mukund Mohan: The Chronicles Of Napkin-Ville, which scrutinised the claims made by him, of having founded over five companies, invested in 11 companies between 2008 and 2012 in his personal capacity and funding two companies through investment fund Napkin Stage. 

Stay tuned for the next edition of News Roundup! 

The post News Roundup: Indian Startup News Stories Of The Week [July 20-25] appeared first on Inc42 Media.

We bring to you the latest edition of Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding Of The Week!

Edtech startup Playshifu is raising $4.4 Mn (INR 33 Cr) in a mix of debt and preference share from Trifecta Ventures Debt Fund II, Chiratae Ventures and Vistra ITCL, Survam Partners LLP, Inventus III India Fund, Bharat Innovation Fund and Star Orechem International’s CEO Abhinav Daga.

Of this, the company has raised INR 25 Cr ($3.3 Mn) in preference share, and INR 8 Cr (nearly $1 Mn) from Trifecta Ventures Debt Fund II in Series A funding round. Playshifu will also be issuing 80 Series A debentures to Trifecta, at the face value of INR 10 Lakh per debenture, worth INR 8 Cr ($1 Mn). The filings said the company will use the funds to meet the operational needs, capitalise on the current growth and boost future growth of the business. Besides this, Playshifu will be raising Series B funding in the upcoming months to achieve the 6x growth in the financial year 2022.

Overall, $133 Mn was invested across 24 Indian startups this week, and one acquisition took place. (This funding report is based on startups that disclosed funding amounts).

Indian Startup Funding Of The Week

1. InCred: $69 Mn
2. MPowered: $21 Mn
3. Ather Energy: $11 Mn
4. Bijnis: $10 Mn
5. PlayShifu: $4.4 Mn
6. Jodo: $3.8 Mn
7. HealthCare atHOME: $2.6 Mn
8. VeGrow: $2.5 Mn
9. BlueStone: $2 Mn
10. Entri: $1.7 Mn
11. iNurture: $1.3 Mn
12. Melorra: $1 Mn
13. Gigforce: $802K
14. Capital Float: $535K
15. Disprz: $481K
16. StyleDotMe: $467K
17. Bewakoof: $400K
18. Stones2Milestones: $240K
19. Finin: Undisclosed
20. Leap.Club: Undisclosed
21. CloudWorx: Undisclosed
22. WYN Studio: Undisclosed
23. Snack Amor: Undisclosed

• InCred
  Fintech platform InCred has raised $69 Mn (INR 500 Cr) in debt from various public sector banks and other financial institutions to expand operations across segments such as consumer, education and small and medium enterprises (SME). The round also saw participation from US-based asset manager Moore Capital, India and Latin America-focused PE fund Elevar, and existing investor Alpha Capital.
• MPowered
  Gurugram-based asset management firm MPowered has raised $21 Mn in Pre-Series A funding round led by serial entrepreneurs and real estate giants Ashok Nichani and Shelly Nichani with participation from a group of US-based high networth individuals (HNIs). It will use this funding to take on new verticals of real estate such as warehousing, residential and commercial spaces, and develop tech-solutions that will enable ease-of-use in day-to-day real estate transactions and management.
• Ather Energy
  Bengaluru-based Ather Energy is raising $11.2 Mn (INR 84 Cr) from existing investor and two-wheeler manufacturer Hero MotoCorp in Series C. With this investment, Hero MotoCorp owns 34.58% stake in the electric vehicle startup.  The fundraise will help Ather Energy strengthen its financial position and carry forward its business plans.
• Bijnis
  B2B marketplace Bijnis has raised $10 Mn (INR 63.9 Cr) in Series A round from Sequoia and Matrix Partners. Existing investors WaterBridge Ventures and  Info Edge have also participated in the round.
• Jodo
  Fintech Jodo has raised $3.8 Mn (INR 28.5 Mn) in seed funding from Matrix Venture Partners, SAIF Partners and a clutch of angel investors. Jodo aims to be a full-service financial services player with multiple products.
• HealthCare atHOME
  HealthCare atHOME has raised $2.6 Mn (INR 20 Cr) in debt funding from Windy Investments and Puran Associated. Both Windy Investments and Puran Associated have infused nearly $1.3 Mn (INR 10 Cr) in exchange for convertible debentures (OCDs).
• VeGrow
  Agritech startup VeGrow has raised $2.5 Mn in seed funding led by Matrix Partners and Ankur Capital to invest in technologies that will improve farming, make the supply chain more efficient and help farmers achieve income stability. Better Capital, Snapdeal founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal’s Titan Capital, ITC’s agribusiness CEO Sanjiv Rangrass, Cloudnine founder Rohit MA, Livspace founder Ramakant Sharma, and Park+ founder Amit Lakhotia, also participated in the funding round.
• BlueStone
  Jewelry brand BlueStone has raised nearly $2 Mn (INR 1.73 Cr) from its existing investors Accel in Series E round. According to regulatory fillings, Accel has invested through two of its funds Accel India III and Accel Growth III Holdings.
• Entri
  Vernacular edtech startup Entri raised $1.7 Mn from Good Capital, HyperTrack founder Kashyap Deorah and BigBasket HR head Hari TN and several angel investors from Silicon Valley and India. With this, the company has closed its Pre-Series A round at $3.1 Mn. The fund will be used to ramp up marketing, produce more content in the coming months and capitalise on the opportunities ahead.
• iNuture
  Bengaluru-based edtech startup iNurture Education Solutions has raised $1.3 Mn (INR 10 Cr) in debt from Mumbai based new-age venture debt platform BlackSoil. The Company will use the funds primarily to accelerate its digital higher education platform and meet its working capital requirements.
• Melorra
  Indian fine jewelry brand Melorra has raised $1Mn (INR 8.2 Cr) in debt funding from Lightbox and Beeline Impex. The funding has been approved at a nominal value of INR 69125 – INR 69,344 per share.
• Gigforce
  Staffing platform Gigforce has raised $802K (INR 6 Cr) from Unitus Ventures to accelerate its brand. The company believes that the r hiring has rapidly changed in the last six months and it now aims to reduce operational hassle for businesses and provide meaningful ways to earn livelihood for workers.
• Bewakoof
  Thane-headquartered online retailer Bewakoof has raised $400K (INR 3 Cr) from Pramak Consultants, Pratithi Investment Trust and Indigoedge Management Consultancy. The company has also approved allotment of 869 debentures at a face value of INR 57,582 per debenture worth $668K (INR 5 Cr).
• Stones2Milestones
  Gurugram-based Stones2Milestones has raised $240K from 25 investors including Sachin Uppal, Godspeed Advisors Pte Ltd, Hemant N, Sree Charan among others. Overall, the company has floated an offer to raise $227K (INR 1.72 Cr) from 30 investors on June 19.
• Finin
  Bengaluru-based neobanking startup Finin has raised an undisclosed amount in Pre-Series A funding round led by early-stage venture capital firm Unicorn India, PointOne Capital and Astir Ventures. The funding will be used to ramp up it’s marketing, customer acquisitions and hiring process.
• StyleDotMe
  Indian fashion tech startup StyleDotMe raised $467K (INR 3.5 Cr) in Pre-Series A funding round led by Survam Partners. Director Jewelex India Bobby Kothari and  existing investors Indian Angel Network has also participated in the round. The investment will enable StyleDotMe to enter the global fashion retail market and scale its overall business.
• Capital Float
  Lending startup Capital Float has raised $535K (INR 4 Cr) in debt from DNG enterprise. According to the ministry of corporate affairs filings accessed by Inc42, the company has allotted 4 non-convertible debentures at a nominal price of INR 1 Cr to DNG Capital.
• Disprz
  HRTech and training startup Disprz has raised $481K (INR 3.6 Cr) from Apiom Inc in exchange for  6.39% stake in the company. As per the ministry of corporate affairs filings accessed by Inc42, the fresh funds will be used for expansion and growth prospects of the company.
• Leap.Club
  A private professional network for women Leap.Club has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Titan Capital and Saha Fund’s managing partner Ankita Vashishtha. The company will use the capital to accelerate its growth and create a wider impact.
• CloudWorx
  No-code platform for Internet-of-Things (IoT) and small home businesses, CloudWorx, has raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from LetsVenture, Faad Network and AppyHigh Technology LLP. The startup will use the funds to build its team and launch its product for consumers by the end of its year.
• WYN Studio
  New Age Content Startup WYN Studio has raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from  India Angel Fund led by Sanjeev Sinha, Tokyo-based India Japan Partnership Fund, media and entertainment industry leader Pranay Anthwal, Soham Unicorp’s founder Narendra Firodia, and India Angel Network’s cofounder Rahul Narvekar. The company is looking to use this funding to further strengthen their team with new hiring and create more original content.
• Snack Amor
  Foodtech startup Snack Amor has raised an undisclosed amount from Ola’s former advisor Dr Srinivas Chunduru’s family office VANS Investments. Dr Srinivas has also joined Snack Amor as a strategic advisor.

Indian Startup Acquisitions Of The Week

• Ecommerce giant Flipkart Group has acquired Walmart’s loss-making B2B wholesale store, Best Price Modern Wholesale, to launch its own service ‘Flipkart Wholesale’ in a bid to expand its presence in the food and retail segment.

Other Developments Of The Week

• Global diversity-focused startup incubator Encubay is looking for 30 women-led tech startups with a scalable model to be a part of its first cohort in India. The incubator will offer intensive and in-depth virtual learning programmes, mentorship sessions from industry experts, and one-to-one sessions.
• Homegrown short video platform Chingari has raised close to $1 Mn (nearly INR 7 Cr) in seed funding from AngelList. According to Inc42 sources, Chingari was also in talks with venture capital firm Tiger Global for this round, but the deal fell through.
• Private equity firm Kedaara Capital may invest in online gaming unicorn Dream11. This investment will be in line with Dream11’s plan to raise $150-200 Mn in funding at a $2-2.2 Bn valuation, which was put on the back burner due to Covid-19.
• Healthtech companies Medlife and PharmEasy are reportedly contemplating a merger valued at $200 Mn to $250 Mn to get a larger pie of the market. With this, Medlife will retain 20-30% stake in the combined entity.
• Pine Labs has announced its strategic partnership and investment in Malaysia-based fintech firm Fave. The partnership will allow Fave’s QR code to become interoperable and integrated with Pine Lab’s terminals, enabling a single, safe, and seamless platform for digital payments and loyalty solutions in Southeast Asia.
• Indian government’s Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY Start-up Grand Challenge has shortlisted 22 startups, including Cloudphysician Healthcare Pvt Ltd, Tricog Halth Services Pvt Ltd, AarogyaAI Innovations Pvt Ltd. HealthPasture Pvt Ltd, Hidoc, TrueCover, Artivatic Data Labs,Wellthy Therapeutics, Periwinkle Technologies, Healer Healthcare Services, OnionDev Technologies, Saathealth, Medtel Healthcare Pvt Ltd, HealthCloudAILabs Private Limited, Incredible Devices Ovt Ltd, Clensta International Pvt Ltd, Artificial Learning Systems Ince, Universal Mednet, MetFlux Research Private Limited, and RapidQude Digital Solutions.
• Parent company Elara Technologies has infused $2.66 Mn (INR 20 Cr) in its subsidiaries proptech startup Housing and PropTiger. Housing has issued 2,15,440 shares at a face value of INR 30 with a premium of INR 670 per share. PropTiger has issued 5958 shares at a face value of INR 10 with a premium of INR 8427 per share.

Stay Tuned!

The post Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding Of The Week [July 20- 25] appeared first on Inc42 Media.

After mandating all sellers registered on the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) to display the origin of products, the ministry of commerce and industry has announced that the vendors registered on the government ecommerce marketplace to present a compliance certificate as per the new procurement rules. This, in a way, will restrict suppliers of Chinese origin to be eliminated from the platform. 

According to an ET report, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) will be setting up a committee to check all applications from neighbouring countries that India shares a border with for prior registration and security clearance. This decision from the government could impact sectors that are heavily dependent on imports and supplies from China, including automobile, electric vehicles, drones, telecom, solar among others. 

The committee would be consisting of senior officials from ministries of home, external affairs and other departments. The committee will be working on the procedure of scrutiny of such applications, the report added. 

Prior to this, DPIIT had also urged the vendors and ecommerce companies to reveal the country of origin of the products for already listed products. With this, the government had plans to promote ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat,’ and ‘Make in India,’ products. However, with the new procurement policy in place, the process seems to be streamlined by the government. 

On July 22, 2020, the centre had told the Delhi high court that ecommerce sites such as Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal have to ensure the country of origin is displayed on imported products sold on their platforms. Previously, the ecommerce companies agreed to display country of origin.     

In 2016, the ministry of commerce and industry launched GeM for procurement of goods and services sold or procured by the government departments and public sectors. In February, the government ecommerce marketplace had registered procurement worth INR 40K Cr with over 3.24 Lakh vendors registered on the platform. 

The new procurement policy released on July 23, 2020, states that the bidder sharing the border with India will be eligible if all criteria are met, in case of failing to meet the requirement, the bidder will not be eligible to take part in the tender process. However, industry experts said that if Indian companies are to benefit from the new procurement policy, the government will have to clarify that only Indian companies owned by Indians will be eligible to participate in government tenders.  

The post After Country Of Origin, Govt Marketplace Ask Vendors For Compliance Certificate appeared first on Inc42 Media.

In the month of April, when Reliance Jio kickstarted its fundraising spree, the company added  1.57 Mn net subscribers in the month, to increase its base to 389.09 Mn. The data by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) shows that Bharti Airtel lost 5.26 Mn subscribers, followed by Vodafone Idea, which saw a decline of 4.51 Mn users. 

BSNL also lost 20,053 subscribers during the month., TRAI data shows. At the end of April, the mobile user base Airtel stood at 322.54 Mn, followed by Vodafone Idea at 314.65 Mn. BSNL’s user base stood at 119.76 Mn. The total wireless subscriber base declined to 1,149.52 Mn in April from 1,157.75 Mn in March.

As on April 30, 2020, the private access service providers held 89.28% market share of the wireless subscribers whereas BSNL and MTNL, the two PSU access service providers, had a market share of only 10.72%.

Another key metric gauged from the data collected by TRAI is the Visitor Location Register (VLR), reflecting the number of active subscribers on a mobile network. Bharti Airtel has the maximum proportion (95.26%) of its active wireless subscribers, 88.85% for Vodafone and 78.75% for Reliance Jio.

Notably, after months, Bharti Airtel has lost 4G subscribers. It had 146.10 Mn 4G subscribers in March, which declined to 142.33 Mn in April. Similarly, Vodafone Idea’s 4G user base declined to 111.36 Mn in April from 117.43 Mn in March.

The reports have noted that the reason for the decline could be a lack of recharge facilities during the lockdown. Although Airtel and Vodafone Idea had increased the validity of customers, the extension was limited to low income or 2G customers. The reason for the 4G decline may be that many of the smartphone users were not able to recharge their phones, leading to disconnection.

As per industry estimates, the three telecom giants have collectively added around 5 Lakh new users in March 2020, noting a sharp decline from an average of 2.5 Cr to 3 Cr per month before the coronavirus pandemic started spreading in India.

In April, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and Reliance Jio were planning to seek approval from the department of telecommunication (DOT) and the home ministry to implement a new safe and secure model to offer mobile connections to new users outside retail outlets.

The companies were looking to incorporate e-KYC (electronic-know your customer) parameters, allowing users to apply for new SIM cards without going to the mobile stores to buy new connections. Besides this, the telecom companies were also looking for approval to arrange for a secure and hygienic way of home delivery of SIM cards. 

The post Reliance Jio Continues To Bite Into Airtel, Vodafone User Base In April appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Given the decades of experience for Balaji Telefilms in the film and television industry, ALTBalaji has always had a massive advantage in terms of content and production flow over many other homegrown OTT platforms. But over the years, ALTBalaji has forged a unique identity in the space and leveraged user interest for its shows to earn robust direct revenue. 

With its shows primarily targetted at Tier 2 and 3 audiences in the Hindi belt, the platform has sustained yearly growth. Currently, 56% of its users coming from non-metro and tier 2/tier 3 towns and cities, as per its latest financials which were released this week. 

The opportunity in the Indian OTT video streaming segment is immense. The Indian consumer today is not shy about experimenting and one area that has seen major growth is bold or adult-rated content. As reported in DataLabs by Inc42+’s ‘India’s OTT Market Landscape 2020’, the time spent on OTT streaming has increased significantly, with attention economy sectors such as OTT, podcasts, gaming have witnessed an average increase of 30-60% since early March. The report noted that players like ALTBalaji, Ullu, Addatimes and Prime Flix are gaining an edge due to their bold content offerings. 

The primary content for around 26 regional OTT video streaming players operational in India is full-length feature movies. TV shows are the next popular category, followed by originals and web series. ALTBalaji has a mix of all of these categories, but among its originals, all of its shows are rated 18+, for adults-only. 

ALTBalaji says that in FY20 it has grown its direct subscription revenue over 100% from the last fiscal. In the quarter ended March 31, the service added 12,300 subscriptions per day (1.2 Mn in Q4), compared to 10,000 per day the previous quarter. 

The company says it currently has 8.4 Mn monthly active users “engaged”, a small number of whom convert into paying subscribers (“profitable consumers”).

As a result of this, the company says its overall revenue has grown 61% in Q4 reaching INR 22.2 Cr, with expenses of INR 47.7 Cr, a 3.9% Y-o-Y increase. The company’s losses have narrowed 17% Y-o-Y reaching INR 24.9 Cr in Q4 FY20.

ALTBalaji’s revenue streams include subscription income, licensing of digital content rights and income from hosting ads on the free service. The company claims it sees high engagement with its user funnel showing 1% of impressions converting to subscribers. 

On a yearly level, the company says its revenue has grown 85.5% in 2019-2020 reaching INR 77.7 Cr, with expenses of INR192.5 Cr, a 17% Y-o-Y increase. The company’s losses have dropped by 3% on a Y-o-Y basis, amounting to INR 111.4 Cr in FY20.

On examining further, we noted that in Q4 FY20, the company’s major expense was production costs which jumped 26% Y-o-Y reaching INR 26.1 Cr in the quarter. However, with most production halted in the next quarter, we expect ALTBalaji to have significantly better financial performance in Q1 for FY2021 if it has maintained its run rate of subscribers. 

The rising production costs are directly related to the company’s focus on original content — the platform today has 62 original shows, which includes multiple shows with returning seasons. It will continue to add 20- 24 shows for 2020-21 — but that remains to be seen pending the long-term impact from the pandemic. 

The company said it leverages the Balaji ecosystem of TV and films to promote shows and acquire consumers via lower marketing spends. It noted that a deeper library of original shows allows ALTBalaji to acquire customers at a lower cost of acquisition.

This can be further noticed as in Q4 FY20, the company’s marketing costs fell 36% reaching INR 4.8 Cr, compared to INR 7.5 Cr in Q4 FY19. However, on the yearly level, in FY20, the company’s marketing costs increased 17% reaching INR 30.4 Cr. This indicates that the company’s acquisition cost is slowly improving with users coming in just on the merits of the content, but it still has a long way to go, given the losses in FY20. 

Overall, 823 hours of content was produced in the fiscal at an average realization of INR 0.37cr / hour, as against 763 hours in FY2019. It also noted that the content alliance with Zee5 which went live in mid-2019 is driving growth for both partners. Together, they have co-produced five shows already and have plans to make 60 such shows. 

In simple terms, the company has pivoted from a multi-partner free to a single partner behind the paywall ecosystem. ALTBalaji offers content in regional Indian languages Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu as well as in Arabic, Bahasa (Indonesia and Malaysia).

According to Redseer, the online content consumption in India grew 35% in April 2020 compared to January 2020. As social distancing and work-from-home continue to prevail, the shows watched on the OTT platforms have turned into conversation starters across the country. In terms of financials too, ALTBalaji has been consistently improving which positions it well for the long fight in the crowded OTT segment.  

The post ALTBalaji Doubles Subscription Revenue In FY2020 As Bold Content Strategy Pays Off appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Reliance Industries’ grocery delivery app JioMart, which recently made its debut on Android and Apple digital distribution platform, has already crossed 1 Mn (10 Lakh) downloads on Google Play Store. The company is currently ranked in the third position in the shopping category, just below Amazon and Flipkart respectively.

JioMart had crossed the 100K downloads mark within a day of its launch on the Google Play Store on July 19, 2020. Even though hitting the 1 Mn mark in the first week is commendable, it is comparatively weaker than Reliance’s last offering, JioMeet. The video conferencing tool had crossed 500K users on the first day itself.

However, Reliance Industries and its digital venture Jio Platform has a lot of hope from JioMart. Speaking at Reliance’s 43rd annual general meeting (AGM), chairperson and managing director Mukesh Ambani had announced that JioMart will soon expand its offering from groceries to include all possible products like electronics, fashion, pharmaceuticals and healthcare items.

With such expansion, the company could easily compete against Amazon and Flipkart that have marked its presence as a one-stop-shop for everything except medicine. For the epharmacy venture, JioMart will be competing against 1mg, Practo, PharmEasy and others. NetMeds too is one of the competitors but several media reports have suggested that Reliance may be looking to acquire the company.

Reliance Jio has successfully piloted the beta version of JioMart Grocery in 200 cities, delivering close to 2.50 Lakh orders daily. Isha Ambani, during the AGM, also announced that JioMart has enabled the kirana partners to deliver their offering despite the Covid-19 pandemic and the resultant lockdown. It has also enabled a multipurpose point of service (POS) service to enable smooth transactions between stores and their customers.

JioMart started its operations in December 2019 from Navi Mumbai, Kalyan and Thane in Mumbai, but was expanded to 200 cities in May. The platform is currently dealing in fruits and vegetables, dairy and bakery, staples, snacks and branded food, personal care products, home care and baby care products.

According to US-based market research company Forrester Research, the Indian online grocery delivery will clock $3 Bn in sales by the end of the year. This would represent a 76% hike compared to $1.7 Bn last year. Meanwhile, the ecommerce segment is expected to grow by 6%, amounting to $35.5 Bn this year. However, compared to last year, the firm would also seek a hike of $2 Bn.

The post JioMart Clocks 1 Mn Downloads Within A Week Of Play Store Debut appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Mumbai-based edtech startup Lido Learning is currently in talks to raise $20 Mn to $30 Mn with Curefit and TikTok’s parent ByteDance at $100 Mn valuation to expand its product offering and venture into the international market, a top executive in the company told Inc42. The startup will also be looking to double its team size to 2K by the end of 2020.

The executive seeking anonymity also noted that the investment will be a part of Lido Learning’s Series B that had closed in April. The edtech startup had raised to $10.5 Mn in this round led by BAce Capital. Overall, the company’s investors include  Rocket Internet founder Alex Samwer-backed Picus Capital, Paytm president Madhur Deora, Medlife CEO Ananth Narayanan, MD JK Tyres Vikrampati Singhania, CEO, Shaadi.com Anupam Mittal and MD of Patni Wealth Advisors Arihant Patni, among others. The company was founded by Sahil Sheth in 2019.

According to sources, several other financial and strategic partners have also shown interest to participate in Lido Learning’s Series B round purely because of the uptake in the company’s performance and in general the hype in edtech due to Covid-19 restrictions. Due to this hike, even existing investors are not willing to exit from the company but are looking to invest further for better returns.

However, the term sheets have not been signed yet and are subject to the deal structure and valuation. The company will also be weighing the pros and cons of each of these deals and investors.

Both Curefit and ByteDance are a very interesting set of investors, especially as their operations have severely been crippled over the last few months. Bytedance’s investment in the company was first reported by Economic Times.

The pandemic and the resultant lockdown has been a major disadvantage for health and fitness startup Curefit, which was only inches away from the unicorn club. With all the fitness and health centers shut, the company had to resort to layoffs and furloughs back in May 2020 impacting 700-1000 employees. The company has once again resorted to downsizing with 600 employees across several vertices including Eat.Fit, Cultfit, and Curefit. The Ankit Nagori and Mukesh Bansal-led Curefit reportedly expects its business to fully recover in a year’s time.

Commenting on the same, industry sources noted that Curefit had raised $100 Mn, but the company has not been able to invest the same amount in its core business operations. Therefore, it is looking towards edtech, specifically Lido Learning, to ensure return on investments.

Meanwhile, ByteDance has been hit by the difference between India and China. The Indian government has banned all ByteDance-run platforms — TikTok, Helo and Vigo — along with several other Chinese apps citing national security issues. The company is now looking to experiment with TikTok’s corporate structure and even move out of China to get away from the problems arising due to the anti-China sentiment across the world.

In addition to this, the government of India had also set up a screening process for all investments pouring in from neighbouring countries, mainly China. Any Chinese investment firm would need approval from the concerned authorities in order to cement a deal. The biggest hindrance in this screening process is its arbitrary nature.

The post Lido Learning Brings Curefit, ByteDance To Cap Table For Series B appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Once on the margins of the Indian entertainment industry, with its racy content only to be viewed in single-screen theatres situated in the dingy alleys of Old Delhi, the increased push towards digital has breathed life back into the ‘erotic’ entertainment industry. With titles like Open Marriage, Maya Memsaab, Love in Lockdown and My First Practical prominently displayed on the homepages of their websites, Indian streaming platforms engaged in the production and distribution of erotic online content are now the source of voyeuristic pleasure for millions of users. Most such streaming platforms, such as The Cinema Dosti, Feneo Movies, Fliz Movies, Gupchup and Kooku, among others, have also launched their mobile applications on the Play Store, along with various subscription models, starting from INR 49/month.  

Our curiosity piqued by a recent report which revealed that the viewership for adult-rated content on popular OTT platforms such as Netflix, Amazon and AltBalaji, among others, had gone up during the Covid-19 induced lockdown, Inc42 decided to undertake a similar examination for Indian OTT platforms which wholly specialise in the ‘erotic’ genre. The results weren’t surprising. 

Increase In Website Traffic For Erotic Content

While analysing the traffic for these streaming platforms, a trend which is visible, and consistent for most is the progressive increase in website visits as the country went into lockdown. For Feneo Movies, the visits increased from 130,000 in February to 220,000 in March, an increase of about 70%. Visits for April remained steady at 220,000, before slumping to 140,000 in May, as the lockdown was gradually eased in parts of the country. 

For another streaming platform Kooku, visits increased by 60% from February to March, and then by another 58% in April, when they stood at 190,000. Thereon, the total monthly visits fell to 140,000 in May, before registering a 35% spike in June and jumping to 190,000. Gupchup also witnessed an 80% increase in website visits from March to April. 

As for Fliz Movies, it easily surpassed its competitors in the segment, consistently witnessing around 700,000 monthly visits since the beginning of this year. Fliz Movies also bucked the trend of growth in viewership during the lockdown, with its numbers remaining largely consistent, hovering around the 700,000 mark from January to April, before witnessing a 32% fall in visits in May.

Fliz Movies also leads the pack in terms of downloads, along with Kooku, with both having more than 1 Mn downloads each for their mobile application on the Google Play Store. In contrast, Gupchup, Feneo and The Cinema Dosti each have attained the 100,000+ downloads mark on the Play Store.

While data for website traffic wasn’t available for The Cinema Dosti, Inc42 spoke to Ayushraj Pandey, the managing director of Cine Prime World, the company which owns The Cinema Dosti. Pandey confirmed that his website had also witnessed a similar trend.

“We’ve seen a 25% growth in video downloads during the lockdown period, and a 67% increase in revenue from subscriptions in the lockdown, as compared to the period before the country-wide lockdown was implemented,” he said. 

Another interesting fact to be gleaned from the website traffic assessment is the visits gained by these platforms through social media. For Feneo movies, of the 6,000 website visits which the platform gained through social media, 90% of them were through Twitter, while 9.5% were from YouTube. A similar trend was visible for Fliz Movies as well, which gained 15,000 visits from social media, of which, 75% were from Twitter. 

Shivang Khandelwal, marketing manager at Feneo Movies, explained the reasons behind the trend. “Twitter allows us to engage with our community rather well. We have a very robust social media strategy, where we upload posters of our web series, films and short films, behind-the-scenes videos from our sets, and interviews with the popular actors and actresses,” he said, adding that being active on Twitter allows the platform to try and meet the expectations of the audience.

“There is a very strong audience for the erotic genre. They have certain demands which we try to meet with our shows. If they ask for a particular actress to be cast in our upcoming series, we try and manage that. Sometimes, there are demands for showing more ‘foreplay’ in the next series, so when the lockdown opened, we fulfilled that demand of our audience as well.”

For Pandey of The Cinema Dosti, his company’s social media strategy differs for every platform. “On Instagram, our posts are very sanitised because we might run into trouble with the authorities there for posting ‘erotic’ content. So we limit our Instagram posts to movie posters and trailers of our upcoming shows. On YouTube, we have the leeway to upload longish, slightly more ‘revealing’ clips from our films and web series. Still, we have to maintain caution,” he said. 

Buoyed by the steady viewership for its web series and feature films, The Cinema Dosti is now looking to create content in regional Indian languages.

“We have a lot of content in Bhojpuri which sells well in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. But we are also planning to create Bengali content, as there is a huge market, for the ‘erotic’ genre in Kolkata, where a lot of these production houses are also based,” said Pandey. 

For a lot of these platforms, the lockdown meant that shooting for ongoing projects had to be stopped. However, what helped them tide over the crisis without incurring a fall in revenue was the existing bank of content which they had already shot. “Our industry always plans for 3-4 months. So we had a bank of content when the lockdown was placed. We began using that existing stock, as well as purchasing more content from other production houses who also have a stock of content ready for release with them. Just as the lockdown opened and the restrictions were lifted, we began shooting in a phased manner,” said Pandey, who works out of Mumbai. 

For most platforms working in the ‘erotic’ genre, piracy remains a nagging issue, given the fact that clips from their shows are routinely uploaded on porn sites. Pandey said that a lot of The Cinema Dosti’s content is available for free on Telegram. This poses a challenge for these companies in safeguarding the dignity of their artists.

“Our artists are professional actors. Some of them have done regional films while others are aspiring actors. They do their work with a lot of dignity but when they see their work being viewed on porn sites, it affects them. We have a legal team which takes care of these issues and routinely pulls down the pirated versions of our shows and movies from these sites,” Pandey said.

Khandelwal, who works out of Surat in Gujarat, also had similar views on piracy. “There’s some dignity attached to the work when it’s for a web series and uploaded on our OTT platform. When you take the same content to porn sites, you strip the dignity of the actors who’ve worked in the project. It could also have damaging effects on their personal life. We have a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) certificate. So when pirated versions of our content are uploaded on porn sites, we get them removed by forwarding the links to the concerned authorities.” 

Fears Of Censorship

The future looks promising for many of these platforms with an ever-growing demand for ‘erotic’ content in India and their foray into making shows and films in regional languages as well. For The Cinema Dosti, the company is actively looking into App Store Optimisation (ASO) and releasing its mobile application on the iOS App Store. However, fears of censorship always loom on the horizon. 

A Reuters report in October last year said that the government was deliberating on a potential censorship law for OTT platforms. If passed, it would amount to a virtual ban on platforms producing ‘erotic’ content, where every episode’s premise and most of the dialogues and visuals are bawdy in nature, and hence, most likely to be censored in entirety.

Pandey said that his company is trying its best to ensure that the content released by The Cinema Dosti can’t be viewed by anyone who is below 18 years of age. “We are planning to implement a passcode system, so every time a user logs in, he/she will have to enter the passcode. We want to ensure that kids don’t run into our content. As for censorship, I think more than the government, there are certain groups of people who think we are corrupting the culture by showing ‘bad’ content. But the reality is we are not. This type of content is freely available in so many countries and there’s no stigma attached to it. Here there’s a stigma. But if you are aiming for any kind of progress in the mindset of people, you should realise that these things cannot be stopped and should not be stopped.” 

Khandelwal of Feneo Movies concurred. “The ‘erotic’ entertainment industry addresses a need. We don’t advertise our content and still, it sells very well. There are so many actors, actresses, filmmakers and technicians whose livelihoods depend on this industry. I don’t think censorship is a good idea.” 

In 2018, the government instructed the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to block access to 857 porn websites. Indian OTT platforms with erotic content, which is often called ‘soft porn’ in common parlance, can never rest easy with the possibility of a censorship law. However, until then, it’s a market with burgeoning demand, with plenty of aspiring actors willing to bare, and an audience which just can’t get enough of erotic content.

The post India’s Emerging Erotic OTT Market Flourishes Amidst Pandemic appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The payment experience is evolving. Over the last few years, the payments ecosystem has witnessed the introduction of multiple innovative digital payment forms and instruments. Triggered by the needs and demands of the younger generations, the desire to run through the checkout line swiftly and efficiently is dire. Tokenisation, sensors, camera, machine learning, mobile wallets, and data analytics have helped to create more frictionless transactional experiences. Invisible Payments are already happening through recurring billing processes, queue-less checkouts, and cashier-less checkouts.

Some of the overarching objectives of these have been to boost customers’ convenience and reduce the time spent in completing transactions, among others. Invisible payments aim to address the timeliness and convenience of cash transactions, which do not require a customer to enter their credentials or provide authentication. By 2022 invisible payments are expected to reach $78 Bn in annual transactions.

Some of the key benefits of invisible payments 

Reduces Waiting Time And Cost Optimisation

Quick checkout solutions are provided across various retailers, for example, the billing takes a fraction of second without customers having to lose time waiting in a queue. The time and personnel previously involved in processing payments can be better spent on enhancing customer experiences with value-added activities.

Provides Ease Of Use And Applicability Both Offline And Online

By eliminating manual intervention, for example, of a cashier manually typing the payment amount into a handheld POS, human error by both the payer and the merchant is also eliminated. Thereby promoting the use of digital payments across the globe.

Retailers, ecommerce companies and merchants are working towards making the payments experience seamless and swift. To capitalise on this trend of “immediate buying” there has been an explosion of innovations in the payments field with cards being replaced by mobile phones and mobile wallets taking over our digital payments’ arena. According to a report by KPMG India has more than 45 mobile wallet providers and around 50 UPI-based wallet providers.

It is important to note that invisible payments are not a projection for the future, they are already a reality. When you are using Uber, and you arrive at your destination – the payment is handled in the cloud. That’s it. You get a receipt via email and have not given a thought about cash or cards even once. While digital payment has already spiked high in the ongoing pandemic, a study highlighted that the usage of digital payments among Indian consumers in the current scenario was the highest at 75%, while Invisible payment is going to increase in the upcoming months while we adapt the ‘new normal’.

Talking about the future of payments, the industry will be largely influenced by Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, Blockchain, Biometrics. For now, invisible payments are enabling transactions to take place in the background as payment providers and merchants prioritise experience and find more ways to reduce barriers to purchase. Also, as the world is settling with the ‘new normal, contactless payment is going to be more and more popular across. Big finance companies like Mastercard is also enabling contact-free ATM cash withdrawals amid Covid-19 pandemic.

Amongst all the crisis, invisible payments ensure that consumers do not have to carry any cash or card which along with compromising with one’s health also risks the safety of the transaction which is much higher in case of any card-based payment. The virtual cloud-based wallet makes the payment part invisible along with making the end-user experience extremely smooth and quick.

The payments industry will continue to be disrupted by consumer demand for ease and convenience. Technological advancements will provide the tools the industry needs to respond to these demands. It will allow for the creation of innovative solutions that meet and exceed consumer expectations, ultimately leading the industry to the next generation of payment innovation.

The post Future Of Invisible Payments, The Smarter Way To Pay appeared first on Inc42 Media.

For Prathap NM, the journey from being hailed to going awol took just a year. 

A quintessential son of the soil from Karnataka was hailed as a prodigy. Born in Mandya in a poor farming family, the 22-year-old science grad from JSS College of Arts and Commerce in Mysuru, burst into the scene when he claimed to have built over 600 drones from using e-waste. The ‘prodigy’ also claimed that he had started building drones since he was just 16. 

An article published in December 2019, said Prathap had completed six projects including “Telegraphy in Border Security, Drones for traffic management, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles or UAVs for rescue operations as well as auto-piloted drones.” It claimed that Prathap also worked on cryptography in drone networking to save them from getting hacked and taken out of control. 

However, all the tall claims about being invited to over 87 countries to show his drones, being awarded the Albert Einstein Innovation Gold Medal International Drone Expo 2018 in Hanover, winning gold and silver medal and $10,000 in the International Robotics Exhibition held in Tokyo (2017) and being invited to give lectures at IIT Bombay, and IISc soon fell flat. 

Few weeks back, fact-checking site Alt News debunked the news that Prathap was given a job with Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). Speaking with Alt News, Prathap claimed while other details of his accomplishments are true, the bit about his induction into the DRDO is false. “I haven’t received any offer from the Prime Minister’s Office. The PM cannot recruit for DRDO, isn’t it? Several people from Kannada media have told me that I will be getting a call. But I am not sure. Till now I haven’t received any call or email,” he told Alt News.

However, the final blow to his claims came when he was exposed when during an interview with BTV on July 16, Prathap failed to answer his friend identified as Darshan when he was asked the basic question about lift and drag in a drone. 

Later, OpIndia on July 17, did an extensive story breaking down all his claims. The article blew the cover on all his claims including his claim to have saved a girl’s life in Africa, using his drone to reach anti-venom, how his “drones” helped flood victims in Karnataka among others.  

OpIndia also contacted German drone maker BillzEye, who clarified that the company’s owner Bill Gutbier had let Prathap take a photo with the drone at the expo.

The German tech company also put this response on their website. “There were many interested visitors who wanted to take photos of the booth and the drones. Sometimes also Mr. Prathap. He kindly asked me what the drone concerned was and what the exact scope of functions was. I was happy to answer all of his questions. After our conversation, he asked me if he and his friend could take a photo of the booth and I gave him my consent… Then He thanked and said goodbye,” the post reads.

In another instance, Prathap put up a photo with a drone from the Japanese company ACSL on his Instagram. The company has denied any involvement with him on building drones.

Prathap’s fame lasted just a few months. Several people made contributions to encourage him. The pontiff of the Sutturmath granted him INR 8 lakh. Eventually, when Prathap was asked to show the drones he had designed, he said that he was being bound by patent-related concerns. The TV channels, which hadn’t done due diligence in the first place, got their knives out, and have now declared him a fraud. 

Meanwhile, Bengaluru Police has filed a case against Prathap for violating quarantine rules after coming into Bengaluru from Hyderabad. They say he was on the run and they nabbed him on Monday from a hotel in Mysuru. In a TV interview, Prathap said that he had moved into a flat, but the allegations that he had become rich overnight, were false. Police say they have received no cheating complaint against him from anyone.  

The narrative of the ‘drone prodigy’ turning a damp squib is typical of how fake news turns viral. However, Prathap NM who had become an inspiration for many aspiring innovators turned out to be a common fraud. 

The post Was India’s ‘Drone Prodigy’ Kite Flying About His Indigenous Tech? appeared first on Inc42 Media.

India is a land of wealth when it comes to agriculture. The country’s agricultural sector is the source of livelihood for almost 58% of India’s 1.3 Bn-strong population. With technology progressing at a breakneck pace, every industry has witnessed large-scale integration of tech-led innovations and the agricultural sector is no exception. However, the developments in the agritech industry have been relatively slow as compared to other sectors such as finance, travel, entertainment such as OTT platforms, and even the food industry.

While the agritech industry is still at a very nascent stage, recent times have seen an uptick in terms of progress in the incorporation of advanced technology. With the ongoing global scenario, the growth in tech adoption is likely to accelerate over the next few months. Why? The Covid-19 pandemic has put a major strain on almost all sectors and agriculture is one amongst them. In a world where social distancing has become the norm and the global outbreak increasing our reliance on technology, the agriculture industry will most definitely observe a plethora of ground-breaking trends, a majority of which will be led by innovative technology. Here are some agritech trends to look out for this year.

Cutting-Edge Tech For Informed Decisions

New-age technologies such as AI and ML allow remote monitoring of fields and crops and offer real-time updates. The predictive technologies will help reduce the risk associated with farming. Farmers suffer because they are not able to predict or forecast the events and happenings with respect to their farm. This is where predictive models will pick up and start delivering relevant, contextual knowledge with the farmers and arm them to take the right decisions for their farms.

With video-based diagnostics, quality checks of the field and crops and farmer education, the role of technology is key in helping farmers make informed decisions. This year will see these technologies in the agritech sector gain traction for high yielding crops and increased income for farmers. Accessibility to information and periodic updates will become standard practice and will no longer be a luxury.

The Rise In Fintech’s Involvement And FPOs

With the agritech industry progressing, there will be a rise in brands merging fintech and agritech to enable digital farming. Fintech firms will be ramping up their involvement in agribusinesses since the traditional way of organized sources of funding will see a disruption partially induced by the pandemic. In fact, Indian agritech startups had received a funding of $248 Mn in the first half of 2019, according to NASSCOM. We will also be seeing a rise in companies that are enabling intermediary parties such as FPOs (Farmer Producer Organisations). The government’s heightened focus on the agricultural industry to help it thrive will also be a contributing factor for FPOs’ integration with deep technology.

In addition to this, lending in rural areas has been minimal due to a considerable lack of necessary data. This year will witness data-driven lending and decision making with the help of AI-led credit. Implementing this can bring about a profound change in the agritech industry and propel its overall growth.

Bolstered Supply Chains

A stable and efficient supply chain is key for any business, and even more important in agriculture-based businesses. While the pandemic has disrupted supply chains across the world, agritech businesses majorly rely on efficient supply chains owing to the perishable nature of food. Driven by technology, agritech businesses will improve traceability, transportation, and storage to ensure reduced food wastage. With increased innovations in the agritech sector, companies enabling the crop yields using technology will see increased business.

Augmented Mechanisation

Since the onset of the pandemic, physical distancing has become standard practice. Additionally, with more and more people choosing to move to urban cities in search of better standards of living, there is a significant labour shortage. The advent of technology, however, will pave the way for amplified mechanisation in the industry. This will be particularly evident in developed markets that project a major shortage of manual labour. Apart from this, mechanisation also optimises cost and increases efficiency

With such tech-driven transformations, we can certainly expect a radical change. In India’s agritech industry with immensely improved outcomes. These trends, when implemented, will certainly lead the way to create a promising future for the agritech sector.

The post Agritech Trends To Look Out For In The Pandemic Times appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The entire world is facing and battling the worst pandemic crisis ever seen along with the global economy facing massive downtime. Which also makes this time more difficult. Countries around the globe have posed severe stringent restrictions ranging from days to months of lockdown periods. Due to this pandemic, many businesses are halted, some have never seen before downtime and some are waiting for the market conditions to improve. But, still, there are several sectors of the industry that are still shining out and even using this period as an opportunity for the development of their business.

The electric vehicles industry is one of those industries that is poised for better growth post-Covid-19.

Impact Of Covid-19 On Auto Industry

Covid-19 has put a brake on the auto industry across the world. It has also impacted the EV market with NEV sales plunging to an all-time low in the world’s largest EV hub, China. The Indian auto industry which was already grappling with BS-VI emission norms deadline was hit by a double blow when the lockdown was announced. India is the world’s fourth-largest market and it has come to a screeching halt with all manufacturing operations suspended under the guidelines issued by the state and central government.

The Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) said that the auto industry will witness an estimated loss of INR 2,300 Cr loss per day due to lockdown. During the lockdown period, the Central government was discouraging the general distribution of petrol and diesel to discourage city and cross-state commuting. In such a situation where fuel supply is not available, this further provides opportunities for the EV industry.

Changes In The Market After Covid-19

Even in the post-Covid-19 situation, Electric three-wheelers which constitute the largest chunk in the segment will be hit due to the concept of social distancing and the consumers’ concern for hygiene. Only affordable electric two-wheelers may find few customers going forward. People may move from public transport to private transport.

Demands for Electric Vehicles may pick up due to a higher focus on deliveries because even in that situation few people will choose to go out. Buses, especially city buses which have higher EV penetration are mostly bought by STU’s which is purely driven by the government’s propensity to spend in different states of the country. All-time low pollution levels could change consumer behaviour as well as propel policymakers to further encourage EVs.

Recent BS-VI regulations by the government have increased the costs of ICE vehicles, making EVs a bit more attractive for the consumers. So post-Covid-19, while the entire automotive industry will be impacted including EVs, the impact on EVs may be slightly lower than ICE.

Consumer Behaviour After Covid-19

There will be large changes in the consumer’s behaviour post-Covid-19. People will avoid using these public modes of transportation, including cabs, metro, auto and buses, as a precautionary measure. It is totally evident from the countries, where the lockdown has been lifted recently. Usage of private cars, walking, and biking has gained numbers since the pandemic began, while buses and other public transport ridership declined.

Given this future scenario, it forays a promising picture for the EV industry especially for the daily city commuters who travel shorter distances within the city such as people from service industries, homemakers, students etc. Being a safer and more economical mode of transportation, the segment will gain traction in given days with enhanced demand.

The Future Of EV Post Lockdown

The future of mobility looks very different now than about three months ago, where we had seen a big shift towards shared mobility and a push for public & sustainable transport. Even now, in some places where the lockdown has partially lifted, people are prioritizing their health and avoiding crowded mass or shared transportation modes.

The numbers of people opting for EV have gained momentum. People are depending on electric mobility for emergencies such as food supplies or medicines. According to an ING report, COVID-19 will leave its mark on mobility behaviour and see a temporary reversal of the upward trend in car sharing due to social distancing. The Indian electric vehicle (EV) market will continue to be largely driven by the two-wheeler and three-wheeler segments as of now. As per EV market forecast, e-rickshaws, e-autos and e-two wheelers are the most promising segments for electrification in India and are expected to account for over four-million units by 2025.

The period post-Covid-19 will serve as a perfect chance for EV brands to connect with their customers from these segments. A lot of top brands are using this time to get in touch with customers through digital or social media to improve loyalty and sustain brand awareness. Since e-commerce is on the rise, EV companies are also using this downtime to create a stronger online presence for more visibility. In the post-Covid-19, EV companies will be able to recuperate their impetus once the contagion is confined. They will be back in action on the road to EV uprising in the country.

The post Change In Consumer Behavior For Electric Vehicles After Pandemic appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Not even the best quantum computers or AI from the past and present can help us in predicting the future. The dichotomy of a world under lockdown is that it is also in flux. Nothing is fixed anymore, not your corner office overlooking the city you love, not the position of a country that wants to be the AI superpower of the world. We honestly do not know what the future looks like. Who would have thought that a pandemic will make the world start adopting AI  technologies like there is no tomorrow?

In times of distress and looming recession, you would have expected the world to huddle closer and make the best of the situation we are thrown into. Instead, we have bloodied battles over the LAC, reports of Chinese companies buying big stakes in firms whose finances are dwindling and reports of AI being used for atrocities on religious minorities.

Technology cannot stay unfettered when countries are at war. Some years back, the concept of Global Village was in vogue and people hoped to live and earn their livelihood in a country of their choice. Now, xenophobia is on the rise and most countries and people would want to place restrictions over who gets employed based on their country of origin.

In India, the economy had come to a stand-still and there are going to be major setbacks in every sector. AI has emerged as humanity’s biggest enabler, promising safer workplaces, commutes and homes. This is also the time when developers from across the world are working together, collaborating in virtual offices and creating solutions that are deployed remotely in places they are needed, irrespective of the place they were coded in.

AI is the ultimate talisman for these times of trouble. We look towards solutions with hope and get geared up to win the AI race. In Asia, the two countries leading the AI game are India and China. In recent developments, we can see both countries’ strategy and motives unfold to pursue the AI discourse steadfastly, here is a deeper look:

China

According to a report from the China AI Development 2018, between 2013 and 2018, the investment and financing in the AI technology sector of China, accounts for 60% in the world. This was valued at $27 Bn in 2017. This was followed by a three-pronged strategy to become the world AI leader by the year 2030. China’s focus lies on the development of “AI 2.0”. Technologies, such as swarm intelligence and hybrid systems, which promise human-machine integration, are their main interest. As more and more data is used for training the AI system, it tends to get smarter and more accurate. The transition from “quantum-accelerated machine learning” to artificial general intelligence is still a long road ahead.

Through this three-stage process, the Chinese government aims to achieve three goals :

• Establish a world-class AI infrastructure
• Industrial transformation across China using AI
• Become global supremacy in AI

According to the Observer Research Foundation report, “The Chinese government, to build formidable local AI talent, will institute education reforms which include, introducing a new AI discipline, a couple of new degree programs and specialized courses in universities. China is also working on a recruitment plan called “A thousand Talents,” in order to incentivise scientists working in strategic domains, to pursue their research in China.”

Baidu, a Chinese internet search engine company, formally known as the Baidu Brain, is based on deep learning frameworks. It is China’s leading AI open platform, offering over 228 AI capabilities to 1.5 million developers. Many startups, innovating in a different niche of AI, proactively pursue acquisition by the giant tech companies.

India

According to a report by Accenture, AI has the potential to add $957 Bn, or 15% of India’s current gross value to the economy, in 2035.

A report by the Ministry of Commerce & Industry, and NITI Aayog, on the national strategy for AI, is built on the “AI for All” concept. This highlights the need for developing open source systems to democratize the AI industry, making it a resource accessible to all. India strategizes to become the garage of AI solutions providers for 40% of the world including emerging and developing economies.

India’s first step to achieving this long term vision is to harness the power of research & development (R&D) in domains of AI, IoT and Computer Vision, among others. NITI Aayog, India’s planning body, has laid out a ‘two-tiered’ strategy for our country’s AI vision. This consists of 30 policy recommendations. There is a two-fold focus on improving AI-based research. The first is to achieve maximum economic potential via technological diligence. The second is to examine the social applications of AI in sectors such as healthcare, agriculture, and education. The goal is also to attract foreign and angel investment in the Indian AI startup ecosystem.

The New Education Policy draft approved by the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government released on 29th July 2020. The draft proposes teaching coding to kids commencing class 6th onwards. The policy aims to build a resilient workforce that is future-ready.

Trouble Makers

Issues regarding data privacy and protection have been a key concern. Laissez faire, the chalta hai attitude of AI in India with a lack of policy and government intervention is a topic of debate. Ethical protocols must be established so the risk data breach and theft does not occur.

AI is a data-hungry, neutral technology that’s completely free of jingoistic nationalism. It can’t communicate, yet, but we are sure it prefers that the world works together to bring about better processes, more efficient offices and happier people maybe. At some point of time when AI will become actually as intelligent as we want it to be, it would probably want to not participate in the AI race. Till then, let’s hope India wins.

The post Is India Fast Enough To Win The AI Race? appeared first on Inc42 Media.

A monumental shift like the one we are experiencing currently is a rare occurrence, for every entrepreneur, business and the entire economy globally. We need to look for better solutions, adapt and implement innovative practices and design major changes in businesses.  History reminds us that the economy has produced the best products at uncertain and difficult times like these. For entrepreneurs, it is more than about sustenance, it is about adapting to the current situation as well as planning for the future. Let’s look at a few domains that have capitalised on Covid-19:

Ecommerce

We have witnessed the emergence of several apps in a very short period. Today, we can order essentials such as groceries, vegetables and medicines, consult a doctor, create a fitness plan and watch your favourite shows; all through the simple usage of the respective app. This transformation is here for good, not only these apps are integrated with user-friendly functions; their offerings are also available at feasible prices with huge discounts and they have excellent customer service in place; Amazon and Flipkart keep organizing sales regularly across all the domains. A few of the other names here are- Supr Daily, Country Delight, Pharmeasy, Practo and Netflix.

Education

Digital Learning has become the new mandatory norm right now. Edtech industry had already begun to create its niche when the pandemic took place and it led to an overnight change in the approach towards learning. Digital education platforms like edX, Udemy and several others also extended their support by adding new programs in their curriculum, sharing free courses and reducing the fee to a good percentage. Students will have to continue with home-schooling at least for the next 6 months to a year leading to an expedite growth of this industry.

Technology

You can attend a meeting on Zoom now, consult your doctor on Skype, and watch the latest movie on Disney Hotstar. Meetings, conferences, exhibitions, interviews and personal occasions like birthdays, engagements and even weddings are all conducted digitally now with the support of big tech-enabled companies like Hubilo and Explara. Every domain today more or less requires their app for a better reach. Needless to say, this is one industry that has been at a complete advantage in the pandemic.

The above is for the ones who had the resources and flexibility to adjust in the current situation. But when you are looking to pivot; these are few practices that you need to understand in order to move forward and to reach where you want to:

• Utilize the time to understand your market and the consumer patterns and behavioural changes better; make the necessary variations in your product based on the feedback and the research. Ideate for a broader market landscape
• Strengthen your client success quotient, this is to ensure that your client continues to stay with you through the pandemic and post it
• Re-work on your digital strategy; look at how you can build it up more. Covid-19 has brought in an advanced era of digital operations in the market and it has become the simplest and quickest way to reach the consumers. Build campaigns that help consumers connect for a long run and are just not a temporary fix
• Follow conglomerates in your respective industries in India and internationally, this is to understand their sustainability measures; implement the ones helpful to your business
• Recruit employees irrespective of the geographical location considering the remote working approach is here for at least a few more months, this shall give you the freedom to hire a good employee at the cost workable for you
• Most of the IT companies like Google, SAP, Intel, and Facebook have declared remote working measures for the entire 2020. Following these measures shall help with looking after your employee’s safety and also save on the huge establishment and administration costs
• Invest in your internal stakeholders – your employees. Understand their needs and the company’s needs for the next 6 month and work together towards a sustenance plan. Connect with your peers, co-entrepreneurs and friends to know how they have been coping with the pandemic, extend your support wherever you can
• ‘Potato and Potahto’. You might want to clone a successful start-up idea you have seen in another market. Try it
• Invest in tech-enabled companies; launch new products. Now is the time to collaborate with companies and experiment and introduce products that you believe have the potential to do well for the next two-three years
• Learn and Unlearn. Identify successful case studies; understand how veterans have worked through the difficult times in the past. Work on your personal growth with your personal branding/profile

We are looking at a highly competitive and demanding future. When all of this is over, all you shall have is a war story; make it a good one!

The post Turning Covid-Era Ideas Into Businesses appeared first on Inc42 Media.

People are increasingly turning to private homes instead of a hotel room while travelling. If you live in a popular tourist destination, offering your home as a short term rental can fetch you more income per month.

Before you get started with fixing up your home as a short term rental, you’ll need to do a little research about your area. As a short-term rental, you can earn almost double what you make with long-term tenants. Of course, this depends on how frequently you rent out your place, the amenities you can offer and the demand in your locality.

Prepare Your Home

Short-term rentals are usually alternatives to a hotel room so guests would expect homes to be furnished to basic standards and amenities needed for travellers. These are a few things you need to do to make your home guest-ready.

• Industry-standard furnishing: Invest in good quality, durable furniture as short term rentals go through more wear and tear than a regular home. Make sure your furniture and appliances are in good working condition. Certain items like mattresses, bedspreads should be hotel standards.
• Essential amenities: You need to provide standard amenities such as Wi-Fi, toiletries, etc. If you have a kitchen, you need to keep it stocked with necessities.
• Declutter your home: Your home needs to be minimal and clean for guests. Remove an unnecessary item especially personal belongings.
• Automate your rental: Create a system using a lockbox or keyless door to provide self-check-in.

Creating An Online Presence

Now that your home is guest-ready, it’s time to advertise your rental. The internet has made home-sharing easy but now if you are living in a tourist location, it’s very likely that your neighbours are doing the same. So, you need to stand out from the crowd.

• List on several sites: Advertising your rental on multiple sites is the best way to increase your exposure which in turn results in more bookings.
• Snap professional photos of your space: High-quality photographs are the single most important factor for marketing your short term rental. It’s essential that the photos highlight every aspect of your space accessible to the guests.
• Determine the rent: The right price is crucial for the success of your business. You shouldn’t price too high or too low as both practices will cost you in the long run. Research your market for similar rentals and implement a dynamic pricing strategy to maximize revenue.
• Have a direct booking website: Building a dedicated website reduces the reliance of your STR business on other platforms. Always provide guests with an incentive to book directly by offering them the best rate on your website.
• Manage guest expectations: Make sure all the features of your space is clearly advertised. Creating a false impression to attract renters will leave your guest disappointed which again would affect your reviews.

Managing Your Property

Short-term rentals are more difficult to manage due to higher guest turnover. If you are not looking for an active role, you should hire a management company.

• Have a cleaning process: To meet the expectations of travellers, a clean home should be a top priority for your business. Having a comprehensive cleaning checklist is key to making your rental spotless.
• Having the right people you can call for cleaning and maintenance makes your job easier. You need to build a team of reliable people.
• Effective guest communication: Send your guests detailed information on how to gain access to your property before they arrive. You could also prepare a set of house rules to guide your guests on how to use your property correctly.

There is a lot of work that goes into a short term rental so make sure this is the best strategy for you. Hiring a good manager or company can do wonders for your business. STRs have great earning potential but also have its risks. If you are looking at consistent rent every month with less turnover, short term rentals may not be the way to go. But opening your home to this model can unlock huge earning potential.

The post How To Turn Your Home Into A Short-Term Rental appeared first on Inc42 Media.

In yet another development in the centre’s ban on 59 Chinese apps imposed last month, the government has now sent a list of 80 questions to the banned applications. The questions are believed to have been divided into sections such as “company”, “ownership”, “services & security”, “privacy policy” and “data-related information”.

Through queries addressed under the company section, the banned applications have been asked about their parent companies, countries of incorporation, and whether the parent entities are required to share data with the Chinese government. They have also been asked about differences in permissions sought from Indian users as compared to those in other countries. Other questions in the list are about the apps’ policy for incident response, version update and disclosure with regard to the app providing information to India’s nodal cyber security authorities, the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In).

Last week, it was reported that the parent companies for the banned applications were asked by the government to prove their credentials as an independent entity with no links to the Chinese state. The banned apps were also asked about their data sharing around specific incidents such as the Pulwama terror attacks in February last year, and whether the apps had shared the data of Indian users with third parties around such incidents. A part of the government’s queries were also relating to the location of data servers for these banned applications, with the government’s concern being that the data of Indian users was being shipped offshore, and shared with the Chinese government.

In response, TikTok, one among the banned applications, in a bid to assuage the concerns of the government, said that it would be willing to locate its data servers in India. In a statement shared last week with Inc42, TikTok India head Nikhil Gandhi said that the company hadn’t shared the data of Indian users with any foreign government, nor would it do so if asked in the future. “Throughout the duration of our operations, we have demonstrated an unequivocal commitment to complying with the local laws, including data privacy and security requirements,” Gandhi had written.

Why Question Only The Chinese?

Notably, India’s concerns about the data of users being sent to offshore data servers through mobile applications is unique to Chinese apps. A host of mobile applications owned by companies based in the US, such as Dubsmash and Triller, among others, now being popularised as alternatives to ByteDance-owned TikTok, haven’t been presented with a similar list of queries by the government about the location of their data servers, parent companies, beneficial owners and data-sharing policies.

In fact, even Indian applications, such as the government’s Covid-19 contact-tracing app Aarogya Setu, rank poorly when it comes to transparency in terms of data sharing policies. In May this year, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) downgraded its rating of India’s Aarogya Setu app. Reportedly, the app lost points when judged against the parameters of ‘data minimisation’. Simply put, it meant that the app was asking its users to share more data than was needed for the app to function smoothly.

India is now a major destination for multinational technology companies, vying for a piece of a market with more than 500 Mn smartphone users and growing internet penetration in the hinterland of the country. Since the ban on TikTok, both ‘Made in India’ and foreign applications such as Roposo, Zili, Dubsmash, Trell, Mitron and Chingari, among others, billed as alternatives of TikTok, have seen a spurt in downloads.

The post India Asks TikTok & Co For Relationship Status With Chinese Government appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Indian ecommerce unicorn Flipkart, having recently acquired its parent company Walmart’s loss-making B2B wholesale franchise ‘Best Price’, is exploring ways to consolidate its operations. The company may do this either by shutting down unviable ‘Best Price’ stores, of which there are 28 operational across the country, or turning them into warehouses with greater focus on ecommerce operations, sources told Times of India. 

Last month, Flipkart acquired parent company Walmart’s B2B wholesale chain, Best Price Modern Wholesale, to launch its own service ‘Flipkart Wholesale’ in a bid to expand its presence in the food and retail segment. Flipkart Wholesale is expected to launch operations on a pilot basis this month in the fashion and grocery categories. Further, Walmart India employees are expected to join the Flipkart group next year in Bengaluru. 

Walmart doesn’t sell directly to consumers in India, but through organised wholesaler or cash-and-carry operators that sell merchandise to local kirana stores, hotels and catering firms. Besides Best Price Modern Wholesale, it also runs a membership-based programme that counts more than one million members as of October 2019.

In the financial year 2019, Walmart India wholesale unit that runs Best Price brand doubled its year-on-year net loss at INR 172 Cr. Simultaneously, it also noted an 11% spike in its revenue at INR 4,065 Cr. At the time, Walmart specified that the losses had mounted as it had been investing heavily in its technology infrastructure to enhance its omnichannel capabilities and “people development”.

Meanwhile, the All India Online Vendors Association (AIOVA), which claims to represent the interest of more than 2000 sellers, has approached the Competition Commission of India (CCI) to protest against Flipkart’s reverse acquisition of parent company’s Walmart’s B2B wholesale chain. AIOVA has said that the acquisition isn’t tenable since a CCI investigation against Flipkart for abuse of dominant position is currently underway. 

The association’s legal counsel Chanakya Basa, in a series of tweets posted on July 23, talked about how the deal between Flipkart and Walmart, “raises competition law concerns for a variety of reasons.” Basa talked about the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) initiating an investigation against Flipkart earlier this year, as it was alleged that the ecommerce giant was selling goods, through its B2B channel, to a web of preferential sellers like WS Retail and Tech-Connect Retail, among others, at massive discounts.

In its ‘Market Study On Ecommerce In India’, published in January this year, CCI noted that ecommerce companies selling goods through their B2B channels to preferential sellers was a common practice. 

AIOVA has said that Flipkart’s reverse acquisition of Walmart would be detrimental to the interests of sellers. 

The post After Acquisition, Flipkart Plans To Consolidate Loss Making Walmart Ops appeared first on Inc42 Media.

As coronavirus pushed people to limit physical interactions, online gaming became a way for many to stay connected with friends and family. According to Sensor Tower, between Q1 to Q2 2020, India recorded the highest number of gaming app downloads around the world, followed by the United States and Brazil. 

Interestingly, America, Brazil, and India are also the top three countries in terms of coronavirus cases. India saw close to 2.7 Bn game downloads in Q2 2020 which was 50% more than the 1.8 Bn downloads in Q1. Coronavirus lockdown in India had started in late March. 

According to AppsFlyer’s report in April, India has been experiencing a gradual increase in app installs and sessions since March 7, when the number of reported Coronavirus cases in the country started to climb. In fact, user sessions were reported to have increased by 65%, and organic installs by 50% in April 2020. 

Meanwhile, the US saw around 1.4 Bn downloads in Q2 2020 and Brazil generated close to 1.2 Bn downloads in the same quarter. This surge in app downloads also led to an increase in the global player spending in mobile games, which surged by 27% YOY to reach $19.3 Bn in Q2 2020.

The revenue of gaming apps for Q2 2020 also increased 10.3% compared to the first quarter, when the coronavirus outbreak started in China. Overall, the best month for gaming apps was May 2020 when revenue peaked to $6.6 Bn. 

Some of the popular games during the lockdown include Roblox and Fortnite. Further, Tencent’s PUBG Mobile became the top grossing game around the world in Q2 2020, making close to $621 Mn revenue in the quarter. 

Over the next few years, the pandemic is likely to result in an increase in the number of downloads through to 2024 above pre-COVID-19 forecasts. Sensor tower has earlier projected that new app installs in 2024 will reach 44.5 Bn on the App Store and 139.2 Bn on Google Play. 

However, user spending is expected to show a 21% YOY growth on in-app purchases (IAP) and premium app. These estimates were made considering the fact that the world is battling the worst economic crisis since World War 2. 

Bhopal-based psychologist and academician Dr. Geeta Narhari had earlier told Inc42, that digital entertainment and consumption had become a crutch for locked-down individuals looking for social interactions. 

“People are increasingly looking at digital entertainment as a coping mechanism. When you’re playing online or using social media you feel like there’s a virtual partner, and so the lack of socialisation, the lack of entertainment elsewhere all are being solved by these virtual interactions,” she added.

The post India Records 2.7 Bn Game Downloads In Q2 2020, Highest In The World appeared first on Inc42 Media.